Austin, Texas is one of the great coffee cities in the American South. The Live Music Capital of the World is also a city that loves festivals, most notably South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits Music Festival (RIP Fun Fun Fun Fest) and is also one of the coolest cities in America, full stop. (Hot Take: Houston is in fact the best city in Texas and it’s really not even close.)
So what’s a coffee- and festival-loving city like Austin to do? Have a coffee festival of course. And that’s exactly what they are doing. Taking place at the end of September, the Austin Coffee Festival is two days of coffee, coffee talks, competitions, and music, and tickets are on sale now.
Now in its third year, the Austin Coffee Festival will be put on by Craft Hospitality (and if there’s any more Austin in 2024 than a festival put on by a New York City-based media group, I’ve yet to hear it). At the heart of the consumer-focused festival are the roasters. So many roasters Nearly 40 different coffee roasters with a presence in and around Austin will be at the event taking place at the Palmer Events Center on September 28th and 29th, serving coffee for in attendance. Roasters include brands like Intelligentsia, Greater Goods Coffee, Creature Coffee, Medici, Barrett’s, Merit, and Cuvée.
But there’s more to life than just drinking coffee. There’s also talking about coffee and competing with coffee. That’s why the Austin Coffee Festival will feature three different learning sessions led local industry professionals, including Mike McKim of Cuvée Coffee, Charles Emile Lauriat of Trianon Coffee, Michael Vaclav of Medici, and Kimberly Zash of Sightseer Coffee Roasters. There’s also going to be a massive two-day latte art competition, with the winner taking home $500 cash. (Sign-ups for the throwdown can be done here.)
And because this is ATX, there will be live music as well. Each session will feature a different selection of bands and musicians playing live sets, so be sure to check the line-up before picking out when you want to attend.
Tickets for the Austin Music Festival start at $24 for a single session general admission and go up to $58 for VIP all-day passes that gain you entry to both of the session for the day as well as early admission.
It’s going to be a caffeine-fueled two days for the first two days in Austin that may not be excruciatingly hot. For more information, a full list of roasters, discussion topics, and musical acts, or to buy your tickets, visit Austin Coffee Festival’s official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
